More good news for polar bears, ice habitat higher now than in 70’s/80’s

Davis Strait polar bear habitat higher now than in 1979 and early 1980s

The Davis Strait polar bear subpopulation is said to be ‘vulnerable’ to the supposed effects of global warming because, like Hudson Bay, Davis Strait sea ice retreats every summer, leaving polar bears on land for several months.

However, Davis Strait bears have been upgraded to ‘stable’ status, according to the latest table (2013) issued by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (see their boundary map for Davis Strait bears below). Recent development of sea ice in the region can only improve that rating.

Is it good news for the bears? Do we have any useful data on the relation of polar bear populations to glacials/interglacials? Saying it’s good news appears to buy in to the alarmists’ claim that all warm weather is bad.

You know, I think there is a secret society, the “Brotherhood of CAGW”. They meet in secret once a month to discuss strategy on how to keep the “farce” alive. I have no actual information, but one’s mind can just imagine what the meeting would sound like.

The Dark Lord Pachauri calls the meeting to order, then moves one by one around the table looking for suggestions and discussing strategy.

DLP: “IUCN, Polar Bear Specialist Group, we haven’t heard from you in a while? What are you doing?
IUCN: “We’ve started messing with the count numbers from previous years so that we can show declines in populations, we want to get the cuddly coca cola bears back into the spotlight”
DLP: ” Excellent”
DLP: “Nasa, I had an idea, can you create a 30 second video showing how the earth is going to practically burst into flames in the future?”
Nasa: ‘ Consider it done my lord”
DLP: ” Excellent”
DLP: “Mann?, Mann? Michael Mann?? Oh that’s right he’s in court, we may have to consider cutting him loose, he’s become a liability”
Room: “Hear Hear”!!!
DLP: “Gavin, what do you have”?
Gavin: ” well my lord, I’ve been having second thoughts on climate sensitivity….”
DLP: “Gavin, hold your tongue…. that is blasphemy, you wouldn’t want me to use the dark side of the farce and choke you now, would you?”
Gavin: “No my lord. I have nothing at this time then”
DLP: “Gavin, I’ll be watching you”
DLP: “Giss, have you finished the latest round of temperature adjustments in all databases?”
Giss: ” No sir, we’re having a problem justifying the changes now, it seems pesky “deniers” have backup copies of original datasets and are asking what we’re doing”
DLP: ‘Let me meditate on this, I’m sure we can come up with a suitable “explanation” for more changes”
Room: chanting “Dark Lord, Dark Lord, lead us to salvation”

So, I started doing a little research on polar bears. Here is what I found, primarily from scare-mongering sites, who of course contradict themselves with their own facts.

Polar Bear Population Facts

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – Scare Sitehttp://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/cites/polar-bear/files/polar-bear-OV.pdf
There are 20,000-25,000 polar bears in existence, 15,000 live in Canada.
32,350 Polar bear specimens (polar bears dead or alive, and their parts and derivatives) were traded internationally for all purposes between 2001 and 2010.
1. That’s well over 3,000 polar bear specimens per year traded internationally.
2. Of the 600 polar bears killed in Canada each year, the parts of more than half of them are traded internationally.
3. From 2007 to 2012, there was a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins sold.

International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Sitehttp://www.ifaw.org/sites/default/files/default/cites/IFAW_brief-sheet-final-POLAR-BEARx.pdf
Canada acknowledges that it allows 3.75 percent of its bears to be killed every year, but the maximum rate of population growth for polar bears is between 4-6 percent per year. In healthy, growing populations, an annual hunt quota of 3.75 percent would slow, and possibly even stop, that growth.

World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Sitehttp://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/wildlife/polar_bear/population/
Several polar bear populations were decimated by unsustainable hunting by European, Russian and American hunters and trappers from the 1600s right through to the mid-1970’s.
Although most populations have returned to healthy numbers, there are differences between the populations. Some are stable, some seem to be increasing, and some are decreasing due to various pressures.
As of 2013, 5 of 19 populations were in decline. (Therefore, 14 were increasing or stable.)

Polar Bears International – Conservation / CAGW Promotion Sitehttp://www.polarbearsinternational.org/about-polar-bears/what-scientists-say/are-polar-bear-populations-booming
One Russian extrapolation presented in 1956 suggested a number of 5,000 to 8,000, but that figure was never accepted by scientists. The fact is that in the 1960s we had no idea how many polar bears there were. … We do know (and I have published papers on this) that some polar bear populations grew after quotas were imposed in Canada, aerial hunting ceased in Alaska, and trapping and hunting were banned in Svalbard. All of these events occurred in the late 60s or early 70s, and we know some populations responded—as you would expect. (How would I expect? Why not just say it?) … But the most important point is that whatever happened in the past is really irrelevant. (If this is the most important point, then what less important points are also irrelevant?)

International Business Times (IBT) – Anti-CAGW Promotion Sitehttp://www.ibtimes.com/polar-bear-population-higher-20th-century-something-fishy-about-extinction-fears-821075
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. (Similar to Russian extrapolation presented in 1956.) A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations ‘may now be near historic highs'”

If the world is actually feeling threatened that polar bears might cease to exist at some future point of time, why are they still being subjected to legal hunting?

Legal hunting really is the crux of the issue. There are no statistics on the numbers that die each year due to global warming. Are there zero? One? More? How does that compare to “over 3,000 polar bear specimens per year traded internationally” and “From 2007 to 2012, there was a 375% increase in the number of polar bear skins sold”?

Polar bears survived the Eemian interglacial period – 125,000 years ago when global temperatures were about 3 C above what they are now in our Holocene; polar bears survived the last glaciation period which lasted for 100,000 year when continental ice sheets covered the northern polar region completely. I think they can survive pretty much anything mother nature can dole out.

What makes us think higher ice increases the bear population? Warmer may mean more food (seals) being a key variable.

The 300 per year (likely higher) shot by humans might be material as well. We have little idea what goes on on the Russian side in these regards. I suspect many more bears are shot but never reported.

Polar bear presumptions are pregnant with propaganda not actual science. Lower ice forcing starvation of bears is claimed but questionable. We have had lower northern ice and record bear counts for example. So the fear is based on massive forward speculations about unproven co2 and warming relationships such as shrinking ice.

So why pander to the “ice habitat” mythology of warmers? It might have very little to do with the numbers of bears. What’s more, it’s perfectly normal for larger mammals in the wild to go through large cycles of population swings. Moose for example can experience 80% die offs and then regain new highs over very long cycles. Lions, Elephants, Bison, Tigers similar fluctuations. These die-offs are essential improving the health and long-term well being of herds and groups of animals. It’s just more eco-ignorance and more “man as god” thought involved as to why these cycles happen.

Most greenshirt rationalization start with mythical “equilibrium” assumptions so when these are accepted from the onset they have achieved a political objective. There is no normal bear population, no indications of decline and at best a questionable relationship to total sea ice. Of course there is no evidence human activity has impacted sea ice. If you accepted “equilibrium” arguments you are trapped in an illogical agenda conversation from the start. I’m sorry, the premise of the paper is targeting urban primary students. If sea ice extremes trigger a die off then there is nothing that is “unnatural” in that process but we already no how it is being politically postured. A better use of resources would be to focus on the bear attraction to humans leading to shootings etc. Then again that would be logical so unlikely to happen. Save the Eagle, build a windmill near by.

Andrew Boada says:
March 13, 2014 at 9:59 am
Nice cherry pick! We’ve just had one of the smallest maximum sea ice extents in recorded history this winter.
——————
Well we all know that is because the arctic cold was down south in eastern North America.

But let’s face it, your comment is also a cherry pick! For the last several winters, your kind continualy told us that it didn’t matter that there was record high maximum sea ice extents, that the only thing that mattered was minimum sea ice extents. But now you decide to cherry pick and bring up the issue?

Last October, the Antarctic Sea Ice Extents EXCESS was a set an all-time record HIGH: More than 1.9 MILLION square kilometers LARGER than the normal southern sea ice extents. This EXCESS Antarctic sea ice extents was larger than Hudson Bay in area, at the same latitude as Hudson Bay, and larger than 1/2 of Greenland in area.

Did you notice? Did you care? Did you advertise that fact as a “cherry-picked” datum.

Did you notice that the Antarctic sea ice is NOT a since point in a single year, but rather is a continuing trend that began in May 2011 and remains strong today. Now working towards its fourth year, in fact. If this trend continues, within 8-10 years, Cape Horn will be closed to sea traffic within 8-10 years. Does that “cherry-picked” prediction – true, false or unlikely as it may seem, and it is just a simple extrapolation based on more data than any climate model – does that prediction disturb you?

Oh, by the way, on these dates in Feb-March-early April AND in late-August-September-October close to the equinox, BOTH the Arctic sea ice AND the Antarctic sea ice are exposed to the same hours of sunlight every day. BUT, the Antarctic sea ice is much closer to the equator than the Arctic sea ice, and so ANY increase in the ANTARCTIC sea ice is more important in reflecting energy than any loss of area in the Arctic! This week, in March at maximum Arctic sea ice extents and near-minimum Antarctic sea ice extents, the two ice fields are exposed to nearly the same intensity. In September, at minimum arctic ice extents near latitude 80 north and maximum Antarctic sea ice extents at latitude 59.2 south, the excessive frozen ANTARCTIC sea ice exposed to 5 TIMES the energy that the greatly-hyped “melting Arctic sea ice” receives!

So, which is more important? Actually reflecting 5 times more energy back into space that could be absorbed? Or potentially absorbing 1/5 the energy that is now actually reflected?

Actually, a couple of days ago on 8 March ( day-of-year = 73 in 2012) the clear-sky radiation on a horizontal surface at the edge of the Arctic sea ice was 228 watts/m^2. On 8 March last year, on a horizontal surface at the edge of the Antarctic sea ice, 438 watts/m^2 hit every square meter of excess Antarctic sea ice! Roughly 2 to 1.

It is a bit later in March on day-of-year 87-88 (March 27-28) that both the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice receive the same radiation of 334 watts/m^2.
For 5 months, only from April to August (when the TOA radiation levels are at their lowest), the Arctic gets more radiation.
For the other 7 months, September to March, the Antarctic gets much more solar radiation than the Arctic. And, at this time, the TOA radiation levels are ALSO at their yearly peaks!

Davis Strait ice does not exist in the summer, and during the winter it is extremely mobile. At times this winter the northernmost top of Baffin Bay was ice free, as gales drove all the ice down the bay towards Davis Strait and beyond, along the coast of Labrador and past the tip of Labrador Island into the Atlantic.

(If you want to get an idea of how amazingly mobile the ice is up there, check out the drift map of “Buoy 2013C” which began drifting when it broke free of an ice shelf back in August, up in the Arctic Sea north of Greenland, and was crushed in Davis Strait on January 20 this winter. http://imb.crrel.usace.army.mil/2013C.htm )

If the Davis Strait bears were pathetic weaklings, as some make out, they’d all be swept out into the Atlantic and that would be that. In actual fact they live in a world of mangling, crushing floes, and know how to get from berg to berg, and make their way back to land as the ice vanishes every summer. They are tough, because their life is tough, and bleeding hearts don’t make a whit of difference to them, unless it is a seal’s heart in their jaws.

Some headliness you will never see ::
Is our endangered Whooping Crane population being wiped out by wind turbines?
Local ecosystem destroyed by 70,000 acres of solar panels, enough to generate
the same gross amount of power as a single nuclear power plant on a 25 acre lot.
Are solar panel farms actually enormous heat sinks that absorb more heat than they prevent?
Do we need to have an open season on polar bears to reduce their growing population?

RACookPE1978 says:
March 13, 2014 at 10:25 am
_____________________
In addition to the points you’ve made many times now and in past (thank you,) open Arctic Ocean radiates more heat during the long winter night than Ice covered Arctic Ocean. Coupled with the Summer excess of Antarctic ice reflecting energy back into space, it is very likely that the Earth is losing more heat now than when ice at the poles is closer to some average, whatever that might be. (all this is speculative on my part)

The graph I linked to defaults to showing the current year and 2012. Nothing I can do about that. Point is, the sea ice maximum extent this winter was among the smallest on record. Pointing out that in a few places, sea ice extended further than the 1981-2010, and then insinuating that there has been some big turnaround in the overall trend in declining sea ice at the north pole is a cherry pick because it ignores bigger picture. Sea ice extents at the north pole have been rapidly declining.

A few months ago there was wide coverage in the Brit MSM, including the BBC, featuring a photograph of a solitary dead Poly Bear…the implication left hanging was that the poor beasts are having a terible time of it, and its all our fault. Now I don’t claim to be a scientist at all but surely you can’t ignore factual evidence like that set against so called rigorous population trend studies which are obviously smoke screens put up by nasty people with an agenda to persue….come on guys!

DLP: ‘SILENCE! Are you nuts, Lewandowsky? Anyway, I have already consulted the supreme green ones at the UN on my replacement but they just smiled sadly and turned away and took the last train to the coast. My replacement was picked, instead, by the forces of evil who I shall not name, but you know who they are if you read Mann’s con$priacy book. They picked Skeptical Lukewarmer Curry.’

Room: ‘Oh noooooo . . . . our unscientific exaggeration and alarmism is doomed. We were hoping it would be Naomi Oreskes because her hysterical fanaticism would help make it illegal for skeptics to say anything about climate.

DLP just smiles and starts to melt away saying ‘I am taking the last train for the coast, anybody else coming?’

There is a wild stampede to the door . . . .

Not as good as your original stuff, but maybe good enough for a few chuckles.

In addition to the points you’ve made many times now and in past (thank you,) open Arctic Ocean radiates more heat during the long winter night than Ice covered Arctic Ocean. Coupled with the Summer excess of Antarctic ice reflecting energy back into space, it is very likely that the Earth is losing more heat now than when ice at the poles is closer to some average, whatever that might be. (all this is speculative on my part)

Thank you sir.

You do have to keep all of the caveats though. Under today’s conditions of Arctic sea ice extents, during the time of actual Arctic sea ice minimums from 1 September through its next maximum around 1 April every year, (those arctic minimum that so greatly alarm such CAGW zealots as our reader below!) MORE energy is lost from the arctic ocean by radiation, convection, and evaporation when sea ice is melted into open ocean waters than is gained from the sun’s rays being absorbed.

Now, all year, every day of the year, the EXACT OPPOSITE occurs in the Antarctic. Down south, because the Antarctic sea ice is always closer to the equator every day of the year, the more Antarctic sea ice there is, the more radiation is reflected back into space.

Less Arctic sea ice at minimum extents => More heat energy is lost from the ocean.
More Antarctic sea ice any time of the year => More heat energy is lost into space.

marmocet says:
March 13, 2014 at 11:16 am (Edit)

The graph I linked to defaults to showing the current year and 2012. Nothing I can do about that. Point is, the sea ice maximum extent this winter was among the smallest on record. Pointing out that in a few places, sea ice extended further than the 1981-2010, and then insinuating that there has been some big turnaround in the overall trend in declining sea ice at the north pole is a cherry pick because it ignores bigger picture. Sea ice extents at the north pole have been rapidly declining.

And, again, to you this time, so what?

2012 is the lowest sea ice extents we have recorded – though it may (or may not) be the lowest ever. There is NO “arctic amplification! 2013 had more ice than 2012, and 2008 and 2009 and 2010 and 2011 had more sea ice than the previous “record low” set in 2007. If that much-feared, much advertised arctic amplification did exist as advertised in the propaganda, no such yearly increase would be possible.

To repeat, the more Arctic sea ice that is lost in September and October and November, the more heat energy is lost from the Arctic. Now, lower sea ice extents in June and July DO add a little bit of heat energy to the open waters.

But, rather than me tell you what this difference is, why don’t you tell me what you think the difference is?

Just a thought but wouldn’t it be a good idea to point out where, on the otherwise interesting chart, Davis Strait is? I know now, thanks to Mr Google, but shouldn’t we be the first to show our working, so to speak?

The first side of the CAGW coin had the image of a great die off of Polar Bears due to CAGW, now for the flip side of the CAGW coin that we can next expect.

The flip side of the CAGW coin will be the image of too many Polar Bears that will dangerously disrupt the important delicate naturally made balance of nature. Man will still be the blame because of unsupported claims of catastrophe from fossil fuel burning.

RACook,
Also note open water reflects solar energy as well, just look at open water when the Sun is low in front of you, they even make special sunglasses to reduce the glare. So only for the short amount of time the Sun is directly overhead does that small set of longitudinal lines absorb more energy than is lost during Summer.
Most of the year, open water losses more energy to space than it collects. Arctic melt cools the planet.

Andrew Boada says:
March 13, 2014 at 9:59 am
Nice cherry pick! We’ve just had one of the smallest maximum sea ice extents in recorded history this winter
=================
intelligent people are laughing at you……..

I recall an entertaining post about a family
of polar bears who came down into the US
where the father bear testified at some sort
of committee hearing. It would be neat if
someone who knows would repost the link.

Made me laugh. Great one. From 5,000 in the late 60s to 25,000 now this is one heck of a great conservation story. Climate doesn’t kill polar bears, guns do! More specifically it’s those little bullets. Since serious restrictions on shooting them were put in place they have rebounded nicely.

For those who might be interested in less sarcasm and more nuance in assessing trends in Arctic biodiversity, see the attached link. As climate changes there are winners and losers at species level.

Of particular interest will be when the losers become extinct and how many losers become extinct. This will happen. The only open questions are how many and how quickly.

For those interested in real discussion using real data, the spatial resolutions in the attached link are a bit better than ‘Davis Strait’.

The key interest for resource biologists will be whether and/or when a combination of acidification and climate changes knocks out keystone creatures thereby trashing ecosystems and their related fisheries. Alternatively, changes to temperatures are obviously driving significant short and/or long term increases or decreases in some resource fisheries already.

Equally clearly, better resource management action has seen the recovery of many resource species, including, IMHO, Polar Bears and several species of whales.

Polar Bears may be charismatic megavertebrates but, really, we should probably be sweating the small individual/large bomass species that require calcification.

“It’s just more eco-ignorance and more “man as god” thought involved as to why these cycles happen.”

It is a variation on the ‘noble savage’ meme of Western European Protestantism which 200 years ago supposed that there were elsewhere wonderful people leading virtuous lives in harmony with perpetual Eden until it was despoiled by sinful (but enlightened and saved) men who struggled to ‘do the right thing’ to save them from their ignorant selves, but progress we must.

The noble savage meme does not consider the miserable and brutal lives perilously close to starvation, afflicted by preventable diseases, contests with savage animals and above all, dealing with the cold.

The polar bear is the new ‘noble savage': almost sentient, at peace with his surroundings, perfectly fitted into a perfect polar Eden, now despoiled by evil civilized man: marked for life with the original sin of his carbon footprint – the spiritual dirt that stains everything he touches.

Polar bears are cute in photos and videos, but they can out-run, out-climb and out-swim any man and they will kill anything they fancy for dinner, including their own offspring. Fortunately their population is kept in check by hunting otherwise the improved conditions in the Arctic would have them expanding indefinitely. How many’s enough, eh? 100,000? 1,000,000? 10,000,000? It is not like there is a shortage of territory or food in Canada.

Thanks to Dr Susan Crockford, who has been at the forefront of beating alarmists about the chops with real data, from an expert, for many years. I’m sure it’s been a lonely and difficult road at times. Thanks also to our host for providing her with a forum on several occasions.

Oh, and at the rate cherries are being picked in the climate wars, “children won’t know what cherries are”, to paraphrase a great thinker on the subject of snow.

Yes, Dr. Crockford is a welcome antidote to such as the Rutgers Climate Institute, which is among the worst of the whiners concerning Arctic ice and the polar bear. I don’t think Jennifer Francis would want to tangle with Dr. Crockford.

Disappointingly the more likely scenario is that DLP has consistently nodded to Sith Lord and his allies who finance the CO2-death star. DLP will continue to do so as long as his status remains untouched. His hiatus caused disability only feeds this bizarre symbiosis. DLP is disposable and he knows it. I’m more interested in the Sith Lord.

The symbiosis would explain why the useful fool’s pressure groups walked out from their seemingly influential sets into the press limelight in Warsaw. They finally figured out that in the CO2-death star they can as well blow into a violin.

Perfect timing, I just noticed an Arctic impacting weather change and logged on to find a spot for the thought. I was looking through the sat wv pics over the West Atlantic and they show a narrow wv stream heading NNE. I took a look at the jetstream to see what it looked like. The jetstream is moving south across the eastern part of the US, then into the top of Florida before it turns sharply to the north. It touches the tip of Greenland and from there this stream of relatively warm air heads straight into the eastern Arctic before curving into Central Europe. Iceland is in the middle of it. This is carrying a good flow of wv. It is raining in Iceland at the moment and the forecast is for 3 more days.The reason for viewing all of the above was that the NSIDC shows a shift to the downside in the sea ice over the last 5 days. This looks like the reason for the ice loss. The trend is going to dip under -2 sd if the pattern holds.

goldminor says
——————————————————————
The dip at the end of this trend line is about 5 days long. I look at this every day. I pointed out back in December that the Arctic sea ice had shifted its growth rate. Yes, it has stayed low ever since early December as a consequence. Now, I am pointing out a new movement. Up to this point the melt conditions have been mainly influenced by the Atlantic current. It is still being melted by that warm current. This jetstream change has added a new dimension, especially as it is carrying a good bit of relatively warm rain for the area. This could be breaking up the heavier sea ice that was off the Greenland coast this season. I was just reading that there are a lot of icebergs in the Atlantic and a warning has been issued. The next week will show if the sea ice is going to take a bit of a nosedive past where it now stands….http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

For our second Science Graphic of the Week, we bring you some beautiful views of some bad news. The images in the gallery above show how pulses of warm water, dumped into chilly Arctic seas by rivers crossing continents, are melting sea ice.